Leanne Jenkins—-“After seeing the many videos of people acting crazy on Black Friday, we wanted to encourage some human kindness,” the Craigslist ad read. “We thought about selling it, but that just wouldn’t be in the holiday spirit.”In a world where kindness and acts of charity are often not heralded as much as tragedies, comes a story of an individual act, revealing the human heart is capable of generosity and purpose in abundance, even on Black Friday, as others shopped for material things, one man gave his possessions away to help others.

Brian Bagnall, 32, of Franklin Park, wrote a book on happiness and decided to give away everything in his home. He has been preparing to leave the home to move to a furnished one in Virginia. So instead of selling his possessions, he took out an ad on Craigslist offering nearly everything he owned for nothing. It took only a few hours to dispose of his items, But he made some rules about it at the same time. He asked that people not shove, show up early, run, yell or do anything that ordinarily happens in the malls during favorite shopping days.

200 people reportedly showed up for the give away. “All we ask is that if you take something, please pay it forward to someone else,” Bagnal wrote in his ad, a welcome change from the spirit of Christmas that takes place between cash register and checkbooks as people shove and yell and struggle to get that special item for a loved one or themselves at the local shopping center.